Carrier route record
AARSW→ORD
American Airlines · Fort Myers to Chicago
- Flights
- 1,116
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 35%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on RSW to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,116 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,612 at 80.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on RSW to ORD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,079 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.97%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.5%
Every carrier on RSW to ORD, 3,232 flights
These figures cover 1,116 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on RSW to ORD
American flew 1,116 of the 3,232 flights on RSW to ORD, about 35% of it. Its 74.3% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 80.7% to Southwest at 56.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 80.7% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 70.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 365 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,612 | 80.7% | 73 min | 0.68% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,116 | 74.3% | 91 min | 1.97% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 36 | 71.4% | 97 min | 2.78% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 365 | 70.1% | 77 min | 5.21% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 103 | 56.0% | 78 min | 1.94% | D |
Spirit Airlines cancels 5.2% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 38 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am132 flights91.3%
- 8am–11am158 flights92.7%
- 11am–2pm413 flights80.6%
- 2pm–5pm156 flights56.6%
- 5pm–8pm254 flights54.9%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.9% on time, against 92.7% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 413 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on RSW to ORD through the year
July is the worst month at 57.4% on time, 34 points below September, the best at 91.1%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 156 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.0%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 25,273 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 92.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.97% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.34%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,120 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 72.4% on time across 1,116 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,116 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking American on RSW to ORD
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 91.1% on time and July 57.4%, a swing of 34 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,079 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RSW to ORD, every carrier
- American on ORD to RSW, the return leg
- United Airlines on RSW to ORD80.7%
- Spirit Airlines on RSW to ORD70.1%
- Southwest Airlines on RSW to ORD56.0%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.